


You love the hate that we share

by idioticfangirl



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandonment, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Dehydration, Electrocution, Fever, First Kiss, Getting Together, Guilt, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Insecurity, M/M, Sickfic, Starvation, Torture, Worried Keith (Voltron), Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 18:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20451680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idioticfangirl/pseuds/idioticfangirl
Summary: When Shiro is taken, there's no question on anyone's mind that the other paladin's will rescue him.So why then, Lance wonders through the pain, will nobody come back for him?





	You love the hate that we share

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JinHai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JinHai/gifts).

> Trigger warning for torture of Shiro and Lance.

"Does everyone know the plan?" Keith asked for the sixth time. He trusted his team to remember, but without Shiro they felt unbalanced; checking with them constantly felt like the only safe fix. The mission should be over quickly, just a swift infiltration. When Shiro was back, they could go back to normal.

Keith wasn't a bad leader, though Lance would never tell him so to his face. Keith cared about all of them, and when he took his time planning, he picked the safest courses possible.

Lance wouldn’t be sorry to have Shiro back, though.

  
True to form, the plan went downhill almost before it even really started.. They boarded the ship through a blind spot Shiro had noticed last time they were here, an absent comment that had become the basis for their rescue mission. The ship was quiet. Few enough soldiers patrolled the empty halls that it was easy to duck around corners and out of view. The first part of their plan had worked, then, the absence of patrols hinging on Coran acting drunk in a nearby planet’s bar and spilling too loudly that their next task was to go to the Olkari and try to obtain weapons. The planted information must have filtered its way through to the Galra, and the last thing they expected was an attack in open space.

But when they got to the cells, Shiro wasn’t there.

"Shit," Keith hissed, motioning for the others to move backwards. "They must have taken him somewhere else."

"Where?"

"I don't know, Lance, but he's obviously not here!" Keith snapped. He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe through the immediate rush of panic and adrenaline.

"Maybe they're questioning him?” Hunk suggested

Keith clung to the idea. "Okay, sure, change of plan," he announced. They didn't have long until their lions were discovered, and fear rose with each passing second. "We’ll have to rescue him from the interrogation location.. It'll be more of a fight than we expected, but we can do it." He wished he had Shiro’s talent for empowering speeches.

"There's no way that we can overpower all of them,” Lance argued. “And Shiro's probably injured! We need a better plan." 

Keith groaned. "Fine! Someone will make a distraction at the other end of the castle, and the rest of us will sneak in."

"I can probably set off alarms in a few corridors," Pidge piped up.

"I'll go with Pidge," Lance announced, and with that it was decided.

Keith and Hunk crept forwards, crouched low and careful watch for an ambush from the rear. Even though they knew this ship, it still felt like they were aimlessly wandering with no end in sight- until Keith heard Shiro's voice. It was quiet, rattling with a cough, but it was Shiro. They crouched behind a pillar and peered through a crack into the room the voice was coming room.

It was all Keith could do not to burst in immediately.

Shiro was… Shiro was grey. He was worn, hanging from the wall. Blood dripped and his head hung low over his chest. , HIs chained arms shook with the tremendous effort of each breath. As they watched, one of the attending soldiers punched Shiro hard. Keith reached for his sword but Hunk’s heavy hand on his shoulder stopped him and they watched as Shiro bent forward with a sound of pain. A shock flashed through the manacles and he jerked reflexively, and Keith decided he’d seen enough.

"Pidge," he muttered into his helmet, "please tell me you have the alarm ready."

"Just a minute," they muttered, and Keith physically bit his tongue to stop from snapping. None of this was Pidge's fault. "There!" A distant ringing followed the triumphant cry, and the soldiers started filing out from the room in response to the loud threat.

Four remained in the room with Shiro, but Keith was sure he could take four. He ran before Hunk was ready, launching himself into the room and onto one of the soldiers. His enemy went down with a look of surprise; he’d never seen Keith coming. The remaining three tried to call back their comrades, the trick discovered, and Keith darkly willed them all to return. Every soldier here deserved to die for what they’d done to Shiro - the sharp noise of Hunk’s weapon pulled him from the blackness of his vengeful thoughts. 

"Keith," Shiro breathed, voice barely a whisper. 

Keith sheathed his bayard and ran to him, enemies forgotten for the moment. He reached for the chains, freezing when Shiro warned him off. 

"Don't!" Shiro was loud, his voice cracking with the effort of his warning. "It’ll shock you."

"Pidge," Keith tried, praying they hadn’t let the control room yet.. "Can you get these off?"

"Already on it." 

He was eternally grateful for a competent team.

"I can't believe you guys got to do all the fighting while I just watched Pidge type!" 

Ah. A mostly competent team.

"Shut it, Lance." He didn't have it in him to argue more than that, but something in his words seemed to have got the point across.

Lance grunted, and fell silent in his ear.

"The soldiers are going to come back," Pidge announced over the click of the chains unlocking. Shiro sunk to the ground and pulled his arms to his chest. There wasn’t time to relax; Keith slung one of Shiro’s arms over his shoulders and Hunk grabbed the other.they began to hobble to the door, Shiro’s frequent hisses of pain drawing whispered apologies from them both.

"Mullet, are you listening?"

"More important things to do than listen to you complain,” he bit out, too focused on trying to jostle Shiro as little as possible.

Lance sighed, exhausted.

"You guys should go back the fastest way and meet us there,” Hunk suggested “The soldiers will come here first."

"Thanks." They signed out, and Keith winced guiltily when he realized that Lance had been trying to ask a real question. He resolved to apologise to him when they got back, or- or just go easier on him for a few days. Less teasing. It wasn’t a real apology, but it was how he made it up to people. Lance had to understand his concern for Shiro, anyway.  
Shiro allowed himself to be dragged back to where the lions were stashed. They rounded one final corner and there Red was, her head already moving towards them. Lance and Pidge appeared from the other direction, and they were all almost home free-

It happened fast. A hidden door slid open and a soldier appeared behind him. Keith reacted on reflex and turned on the soldier, leaving Shiro in Hunk’s care. 

He finished the soldier off quickly and knelt to help Shiro again when he saw another soldier appear behind Lance and Pidge. 

They weren't close-range fighters.

Lance cried out angrily and dove in front of Pidge. A dagger flashed and he reached for his shoulder, still glaring even as his weapon was twisted from his hand and a heavy arm pulled him into a headlock. Pidge moved forwards, hand ready on their bayard, but Lance reared back in a quick move and kicked Pidge hard to the floor.

"A feisty one, isn't he?" The soldier was laughing, and Keith felt sick seeing Lance squirm in his grasp."We'll give him back if you give us the Black Paladin,” the soldier said, and Keith’s blood turned to ice. “He's what we want. He doesn't look like he's doing too good, looks a bit like someone tortured him."

"Lance." Shiro tried to take a step forwards, but Keith held onto him tightly. He wouldn’t let this happen. 

Keith looked at Shiro, wobbling on his last legs and growing more pale by the second, and then at Lance, who bled but still stood firm and angry.

Keith made his decision.

"I'm sorry, Lance." 

He’d understand, right?

Lance understood. As he was dragged, each jolt sending a shock of pain straight through his shoulder, he tried to tell himself that it was the right decision. Shiro was obviously half-dead and they couldn't risk losing him. Not when they had tried so hard to get him back.

That was where his mind hit a hiccup. Keith’s words seemed wrong. 'I'm sorry Lance'? Not we'll come back soon, not hold tight, not we'll save you, I'm sorry. Like it was goodbye. Like he wasn't planning on another rescue mission.

He heard, distantly, Hunk raging, bringing some life back to him. Hunk and Pidge wouldn't let him rot away in a cell. Nor Shiro, once he got better. It was only Keith that would consider him not worth the effort of saving. That was the spark of hope that kept him from completely giving up as he was flung into a cold cell, smelling like something metallic that he didn’t want to know the origin of. In a futile gesture he lunged forwards, aiming for the guard that had his bayard, but they shoved him backwards and slammed the door. He sat on the floor in a controlled movement, glaring at the door as he fantasised breaking out.

The first time he was brought out to the same room Shiro had been in when they found him, he was determined to hold his tongue. He wouldn't say anything, wouldn't scream, would be the world's worst torture victim until they gave up on him.

If Shiro had managed to hold out for three days, Lance could manage that too. After that, he was certain the other paladins would have come up with a way to get him out.  
"Blue Paladin." He didn't know or care who was speaking the words. He schooled his face into a vague, disinterested look, trying to hide that he was scanning the room for anything that he could use to his advantage. 

A word brought him back, shocked him into listening again, and he cursed internally as the voice laughed. "Ah, so you know of Haggar already? What she is capable of?" When Lance made no motion to respond, it continued fluidly, "You'll learn just what she can do when she comes. She won't be pleased she lost her old favourite plaything, but a weaker paladin will be easier to break. Chain him up!" 

Strong hands manhandled Lance into the chains Shiro had left behind, the cuffs that had fit around the black paladin’s wrists so painfully oversized on Lance's that they could probably have rounded his shoulder. They were tightened until they squeezed harshly on his arms in ways that Lance knew would cut off all blood supply to his hands in mere minutes.

"Any twitch, and you get shocked." A demonstration zap worked its way through the cuffs, and Lance's eyes rolled back in his head, legs jerking as he panted through the pain, still forcing himself not to react. He waited, expecting questions to be thrown at him, or even insults, but instead nothing came. The silence was almost worse than the shock, than the pins and needles tingling in his hands, but he gritted his teeth.. He was reduced to glaring angrily at anyone that would catch his eye, but no amount of heat was enough to make up for how helpless he looked.

Perhaps they knew that he liked to talk, because the soldiers were perfectly content to do nothing but watch as he hung there, occasional shocks spasming through his body whenever he moved, the ache in his arms progressing with each breath. It became harder to lift his head up to breathe, his shoulders complaining when he did and his lungs complaining when he didn't. Silently he thanked Keith for his (at the time) excessive arm strength training, which was now the only thing keeping him from suffocating.

Any number of hours later, he was taken down, pulled with little resistance back to his cell. A small cup of water was thrust at him, just enough to make him realise how dry his throat was without doing anything to help. There was some food that was an odd green colour that, on Earth, would have alerted him to mould. Knowing the hospitality of the Galra, that possibility wasn't completely off the table.

The cell was cold, and Lance hugged his knees to his chest as he drifted into a painful yet sweet sleep, hoping that he wouldn't have to endure much more of this before the other paladins came.

  
Lance woke the next morning to a throbbing in his shoulder, matched by a throbbing in his head. Lifting his arms anywhere above 45 degrees from his chest hurt like hell, and his throat ached and rasped with each gasp. He was dragged back to the same spot, put back in the same chains, forced to endure the same pain all over again. It was worse today, he knew. He hadn't even begun to recover from yesterday. Forcing himself to think happy thoughts, Lance reminded himself that the fact that he wasn't expected to talk meant that his throat, at least, would not be getting any worse.

"Where is the castle's defence system weakest?"

Or not. 

Still, if he wasn't going to answer, Lance might as well just not open his mouth at all, letting the sullen silence do the talking for him. He didn't even bother to look at the Galra who had asked the question, choosing instead a nice spot in the middle distance to stare at and try to zone out.

The shocks today were longer, and more extreme. He cried out in surprise, harsh on his parched throat. The Galra snickered amongst themselves, glad to get a reaction at last. Lance cursed, unsure if it was out loud or in his head, at the breaking of his promise to himself not to react, but was proud, at least, that he had lasted this long. He had more to give, he was sure.

"Where is the system weakest?" The voice pressed, followed by another shock, closer to the question than the first, giving him less time to almost consider answering. That was fine by Lance. The waiting was almost worse anyway.

Over the course of the day, the questions progressed to weaknesses amongst the paladins, planets that supported them, where they were getting their resources from, plans they had. Lance found himself zoning in and out, dangerously close to unconsciousness by the time he reached the seventh different question, brought back to himself only by the lack of oxygen reaching his lungs when his head lolled forwards. Even the pain, by now, was just a problem in the back of his mind, an issue for future him to deal with.  
When they took him down, he cried out again, as though shocked once more. His muscles, seized into the position he had hung in for many hours, protested at being moved, and the pins and needles in his hands as the blood returned to them pricked at him with a vengeance, angry at being forgotten for so long.

His stomach growled ominously when the same food was presented to him again, and he downed the water without feeling it soothe his throat. The cell felt colder than it had yesterday, and Lance had to fight to hold on to images of his friends rescuing him. 

As he slipped off to sleep, the only thing Lance could think was that he would never be able to hold on as long as Shiro.

  
Any number of days could have flown past in this fashion, marked only by the uncomfortable half-rest that was barely a reprise from the pain he felt. By the fourth sleep he couldn't stop shivering, causing the shocks to be near-constant as he jolted about in his chains. By the fifth he got distracted by the fact that the Galra appeared to be sparkling, and he entertained himself watching them glitter for many hours, during which not even the shock could hurt him.

The only thing he knew, anymore, was that no-one would be coming back to get him.

He tried to comfort himself. They were right to, he thought bitterly. He wasn't worth the risk. Part of him wondered if Shiro was still injured, in which case it would be Keith's idea not to come back and get them. The idea hurt him, stabbing a knife at his heart, but he kept coming back to it, twisting at the wound to feel the pain. He had thought that he had started getting on better with Keith, even if had all gone downhill when Shiro had been taken. Now Keith wouldn't even save him. 

After the seventh sleep, vision spinning as he tried and failed to keep his head upright, they asked him the same questions, over and over again. 

"What's the red paladin like?"

The question shocked him back into the room, followed by a literal shock back into the room as he shivered.

“What's he...like?" He grimaced at the pain, his unused, dry throat scratching on every word.

"Yes." He realised now that the voice was a different one, one he should be able to place but wasn't. "What's he like? Do you get on?"

"He's," for some reason, Lance wanted to answer this question. "Pretty." The word fell from his numb mouth before he could even consider it, and it felt weird to say it here, out loud in front of the Galra when he was used to only thinking these things in private. In a dying act of desperate rebellion, he let it spill forth. "He's got nice hair, and he's so strong, and focussed. But he doesn't pay attention to me unless I'm teasing him, and now he hates me and they're never going to come to break me out." That final sentence, admitting to his torturers what he could hardly bear to admit to himself, broke the tears free from his eyes that he had been fighting back for days, weeks maybe. "But you'll never beat him." He gritted his teeth, biting out a certainty. "You'll never beat any of them."

He waited for the shock, but it didn't come. Instead, a bolt of black and purple arced towards him, and he realised, just as the pain teetered him close to the inability to think for himself anymore, why he recognised the voice.

"Haggar!" 

It was weird, because it came at the same time as he had recognised her, but the voice didn't hurt his throat. He wondered dully if it was bad that he had got so used to the pain he couldn't feel it anymore. It also didn't sound like him, dangerously close to Keith, and he cursed that even as he was so close to dying his brain tortured him with the ideas that they could have come back for him. That Keith would have come back for him.

There were noises, clashings and shouts, but how many of them were real and how many came from his overheated imagination he had no idea. They didn't matter, anyway, falling into a weird white noise that shouldn't have been as soothing as it was, a backdrop to the suffering his body was forcing him through.

And then, as quickly as it had started, it stopped. 

There were hands on him, forcing his head up and he blinked with bleary eyes at someone that looked astonishingly like Keith. And that would make the small one fiddling with his handcuffs Pidge, and the taller one nearby Hunk, and...

"You came!" He croaked, trying to put as much enthusiasm as possible into those two words to make up for the fact that he never wanted to speak again.

"Of course we came," the voice was frowning, and looked like bubbles. Something was touching his cheek, stroking it, and he liked the feeling. "Did you think we wouldn't?"

"I," he frowned, brain trying to tell him something important when all he was really interested in was sleep. "Haggar."

"She got away. But we won't let her hurt you."

"No," he tried to pull his head away from whoever, whatever, was touching him, resulting in him slumping to the floor as his hands were released. Still, he jerked back, pushing up his elbows to prevent them from coming near. "I just told Haggar that you'd never come, and here you are."

"Lance -" there were maybe three, maybe fifteen sharp intakes of breath at his words. "We -"

"I said Keith would never bother coming, and 'Keith'," he made sure they could hear the air quotes, because he didn't have the strength to make them, "is here. I know what this is." His smile was twisted, and maybe more of a frown, but he was trying. "You're going to ask me how to get back to the castle, and I'm supposed to tell you, because it's you guys. But I won't. I won't!" Petulantly, he folded his arms across his chest, struggling against the hands that wiggled under his armpits, trying to pull him upright. "No!"

"He's burning up." It was a whisper, and it was far too loud, shrieking at the insides of his skull. "Lance, we came back for you."

"Lance, buddy, it's me, Hunk."

"You think I wouldn't -" the voice cut itself off with a choke.

"No," Lance pulled himself upright, desperately out of the searching hands. His head spun, black spots dancing in his vision and slowly becoming his vision.

"Lance!" The last thing he felt were hands, covered in some kind of fabric, catching him as he fell.

The next time Lance opened his eyes, he was still falling. He braced himself, wincing against the pain that it seemed he could already feel, when rough hands caught him.  
"Lance!" He recognised the voice, and he glanced up, squinting against the harsh light into Keith's face. It was tired, and pale, and worried, three things that Lance was not used to Keith looking like.

"You look like shit," he coughed, unsure why his throat hurt so much when he had only said four words. The one cough started off a chain reaction, and soon he was gasping for air, and Keith was swearing as he gently lowered him to the ground and patted him awkwardly on the back, a gesture which did nothing to help but meant something to Lance anyway.

"You should see yourself," Keith whispered when he was done, and Lance saw the ghost of a smile on his face, not quite good enough for him.

"I," he opened his mouth to make a joke, but was cut off by his own sneeze. Making a face as he apologised, Lance was shocked by the feeling of a cold palm on his forehead. 

"You're still burning up.”

“Mother hen much? I’m fine.” He tried to demonstrate this by standing, but only managed to raise himself an inch. Keith kept him from slumping back to the floor.

“I'm taking you back to your room, and you can sleep while we get you some food." 

Lance blanched. "Food sounds...bad."

"I know," Keith helped him up, slinging one of Lance's arms over his shoulder so he could prop him up properly. "But you've got to eat. They starved you." He hissed out his last sentence, and, though he couldn't for the life of him remember who the 'they' were that Keith was talking about, Lance worried for them.

"Hunk!" Keith called out as the yellow paladin entered the room, and he started, almost dropping the towel that he had been holding as he lunged forwards to wrap Lance in a hug.

"Thank God," he breathed out a sigh of relief into Lance's chest, still holding him tight. Keith let go of Lance's arm to allow him to hug Hunk back, putting him slightly off balance, but Hunk caught him easily. "We were so worried, bro! You've been in the medpod for four days." He leaned back, frowning. "You still feel kinda hot, dude. Are you okay?"

"He's got a fever," Keith cut in before Lance could convince Hunk that everything was okay, grinning in response to Lance's admittedly weak glare. "And a cough." Lance's body chose to punctuate this by sneezing, making Hunk jump. "I was going to take him to his room and then get him some food, but..."

"I can do the food!" Hunk relinquished Lance back to Keith, and Lance whimpered. Hunk was supposed to be his bro, he was supposed to rescue him from Keith’s frowns, not drop him on Keith when he felt like shit.

Hunk didn’t notice. "I know just what to do. Lance always makes me make this when he's sick." His grin turned up a notch as he set off for the kitchen. "I'll bring it soon!"

“Are you alright?” Keith whispered, once Hunk was gone. “You made a noise.” His face was close to Lance’s, and he put up his hand once more to check Lance’s temperature, the movement seeming almost automatic.

“Fine. Tired.” It wasn’t a complete lie.

"Okay," Keith whispered, once more beginning on the journey to Lance's room. It took longer than usual, between Lance being barely able to stand and having to stop every few minutes for a coughing fit, but eventually they made it. 

Lance tried to make a beeline for the bed, excited to lie on it and feel all his troubles melt away, or at least take the weight off his aching feet, but Keith held him back with ease. "Let me make it first." He gave Lance a quick once over, worrying at his bottom lip slightly in a way that Lance couldn't help but fixate on. "Do you want to shower?"  
Lance groaned, shaking his head emphatically, and then groaned more when that forced his brain to jump around in his skull, vibrating without end. "Sleep." He whined, knowing full-well that he was becoming a petulant child but losing the will to care about it. He collapsed onto the bed the second Keith was done getting the pillows ready, sighing as his back hit the soft mattress, and resolving not to open his eyes again until he absolutely had to.

He didn't know how long he slept for, only that it was in no way long enough for him to feel rested before something was on his shoulder, shaking him gently. He started, lunged forwards, expecting as he did so to hear the familiar buzzing that would precede an electric shock, but instead Keith was there, sitting on the bed next to him and smiling placatingly, a bowl of soup in his free hand.

"Dinner," he announced, and Lance blinked harshly, the volume of the words reverberating through his skull even though they were no louder than normal. Before he could say anything about it, Keith was continuing in a soft whisper, "and some water. If you can keep this down, we're going to give you some medicine."

"Medicine?" That sounded way better than food or water, and Lance made grabby hands at Keith, trying to convey his desire to be healed. "Better?"

"Not yet, Lance." Keith was smiling, he could hear it in his voice, the fond amusement that only rarely emerged when talking to Lance. "Eat first."

"Don't wanna," he crossed his arms across his chest, waiting with a vicious sense of satisfaction for Keith to lose his temper. He would get mad, raise his voice, maybe throw the soup across the room, and then someone would come and give Lance the medicine and he could sleep.

Instead, silence followed, filled by nothing but a clinking sound, and Lance wondered whether Keith had chosen the silent treatment. In those thirty seconds, he felt himself drifting off, but was brought back to the earth with something cold tapping on his lower lip.

"Wha -" the second he opened his mouth, whatever-it-was entered, and he shut his mouth automatically, eyes opening in surprise when the taste of soup, his mother's recipe, filled his mouth.

Keith was still in front of him, his smile slightly lop-sided, and he was holding the end of a spoon.

The other end of the spoon was in Lance's mouth.

He felt himself beginning to short-circuit, but Keith's calm, composed demeanour made it all seem completely normal. And, in the haze of the fever, it was easy to downplay, easy to assume that maybe this was normal, nothing to worry about, just guys being dudes.

"Swallow," Keith whispered hoarsely, and Lance's too-hot body reacted in a way that he thought, distantly, he should be embarrassed about. Trying to ignore the way it sent some feeling, warm and tingly, shooting through him, he focussed on the spoon in his mouth.

Then he started focussing on Keith's hand, so close to his mouth, and the feeling started up again.

Midway through his gay panic, something cool touched his hair, and Lance squinted upwards, trying to see his forehead. His questions were answered when Keith's spare hand, the one not mere inches from his face, moved back, holding a damp cloth.

"Trying to bring the fever down," he explained, and for a second an emotion Lance couldn't quite place flashed across his face, an emotion weirdly similar to the one Keith had had when he thought no-one was looking after Shiro had gone missing, but it was replaced in an instant by the comforting smile and bright eyes. "Swallow." He repeated, and Lance obeyed.

The rest of the soup and a few spoonful’s of medicine went by in this manner, even when Lance attempted to sit up more and reach out to feed himself. "No," Keith held the soup away from his reaching arms, but he didn't seem mad. "You chose this. Hunk says to make sure you eat all of it." Lance huffed, the action more for the benefit of his pride than anything else, and settled down again, opening his mouth for another spoonful.

"Good boy." Keith rustled his hair when he was done, standing up to take the plate away, and the praise once again sent a thrill through Lance.

"You should," he coughed, some part of his mind knowing that this was the world's worst idea, but not caring. "say that more often."

"Good boy?"

"No, just. Nice things?" The way Keith's face fell, eyebrows scrunching down and mouth turning in on itself, had him scrambling to take everything back, to have the Keith back that would feed him and hold him and smile at him. "Not that you're not nice! You're very nice! The nicest! I can't think of anyone nicer than you - maybe Hunk but he's weirdly nice - you're so nice! I just want praise, and I want it from you, and you don't really notice when I do a good job, I guess because you're so used to it, but I just." He stopped again, taking a deep breath. "I -" to his surprise, and shame, he began to sniffle, hot tears pricking at his eyes as he desperately blinked them away. "I shouldn't have said that. Forget it. You're nice." He bit out, turning so that he could press his head into the cool pillow, hoping that he would wake up and all of this would be a dream.

"Hey." A slight dip of pressure at the foot of his bed, and Keith's hands were on his shoulders, guiding him upwards. He hesitated for a moment, hands still ghosting over Lance, before moving closer, awkwardly pulling Lance's head into his chest and petting his hair in a way that, while stilted and slightly rough, was comforting, nonetheless. "You always do a good job, Lance. You're right, I should tell you more often. You're," he struggled for the words. "You're a constant, always there to help me and always doing the right thing, so I feel like I forgot that you're not actually constant. That you can struggle, and get hurt, and -" his breath hitched, and Lance's hands reached up, cupping his face.

"Keith, it's okay."

"No," Keith shook his head, covering Lance's hands with his own when they were nearly displaced by the movement. "I've said this much, might as well finish." It forced a laugh out of Lance, however small, and he continued. "When you got taken, I realised that it was possible for you to go. That I might lose you." Pools of tears began to form. "I was so scared, so scared that I tried to get you back the next day with no plan, and then I got injured -" he had to stop as Lance moved his hands from his face, beginning to desperately trail his shoulders, his back, his arms.

"You got injured?" 

"I'm alright. I just." He bit his lip, trying to keep talking even though the tears were falling freely by now. "It's my fault we didn't come to get you sooner. It's because I got injured. And then you thought that I'd never come back for you, that I couldn't even be bothered, and -" He buried his head in Lance's shoulder, moving with him without complaint when Lance made to lean back against the headboard, pulling at him until Keith was all but lying on Lance. "I'd never leave you." The sudden vehemence made Lance jump, but he didn't pull away except to see Keith's face, eyes full of fiery determination. "I'd never abandon you; I'd rather die than let you get hurt. It killed me to leave you there, killed me that it was my fault we couldn't go back sooner, all of this," he waved his hands at Lance, "was my fault, and you thought I wouldn't come back!"

"I was half-dead," Lance pointed out, which was quite reasonable in his opinion, but only served to make Keith squeeze his eyes tight shut, hands gripping Lance’s shirt. "I thought the Galra were sparkling. I wasn't exactly in my right mind. And the medicine is working! I feel better already." 

“Not good enough.” Keith’s cheeks were flushed red. “I’m going to hunt down everyone that did this to you.” He gritted his teeth. Lance ran his hand through Keith’s hair, an action that did more than he ever expected as Keith appeared to completely relax, melting into the touch.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m here now, and I’m safe, and you’ve been so nice to me.”

"I wanted to make you feel wanted when you woke up. I shouldn't have mentioned any of," he shrugged, "what happened. It's not because of that. It's because," he fumbled for a second. "It's because you're you, and you're special, and I love you." 

Eyes widening, Keith reared backwards so fast he tumbled out of sight, Lance yelling after him as he thumped off the bed. "Keith!" 

Holding his head, beet red to the tips of his ears, Keith reappeared, mumbling something that was quickly muffled by Lance lunging forwards, kissing him so hard they both fell off the bed again, Lance landing safely on Keith's chest. 

"I love you too." He whispered, with only the black fabric privy to his blush as he did so. He moved up, excited to kiss Keith again now that they were both on solid ground, but a coughing fit stopped him, and he let his head fall back onto Keith's shoulder.

"Sleep," Keith was smiling, he could tell, as he lifted Lance as though he was nothing, placing him on the bed with a tender hand on his forehead. "I'll wake you up when it's time for more medicine."

"Wait," giving in to his sleepy desire, Lance hooked a fist into Keith's shirt, pulling him down. "Stay with me?"

Keith grinned, climbing into the bed beside Lance, awkwardly shuffling until his arms were wrapped around Lance, blanketing him from the rest of the world. "Always."


End file.
